Pheasant

Review: Crispin, Clapham

We moved to Clapham five years ago, and the only small independent restaurant that critics and bloggers were ever bothered with – the Dairy – immediately closed. Roll on five years, and we’ve now got Crispin at Studio Voltaire, the third or fourth outpost of this lil’ bunch of small plate places. Let’s hope they …

View full post
Shepherd's pie

Review: Cinnamon Bazaar, Covent Garden

Can I write a fair review here? We met up at Cinnamon Bazaar with friends, six of us for a sociable dinner a few weeks before Christmas (though close enough for all the decorations to be up in the streets and the festive menus to be popping up in the restaurants). So perhaps my mind …

View full post
Edamame at Drunken Lobster

Review: Drunken Lobster, Ventnor

The Isle of Wight needs a bridge. How else am I to get over more regularly for good food? Looks to me that the Solent at its narrowest point is only a bit longer than the Isle of Skye bridge, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Loads more people live on and visit Wight than …

View full post
Long Chim rolls

Review: Long Chim, Soho

It feels like Long Chim kinda tricked me. A little bit. Their spiel says: “Long Chim, meaning to ‘come and try,’ invites you to an authentic Thai dining experience. We strive to capture the vibrancy and energy of modern Bangkok, serving the food found in the alleyways, the markets and the shop houses in Thailand’s …

View full post

Review: The Greene Oak, Windsor

Coming back from a long enough trip abroad (this time, a six week jaunt around northern Spain) gives you the chance to look at what’s back home with a somewhat fresh gaze. At least, if you try hard enough. The English pub really is perhaps the most distinctive piece of our human landscape, very different …

View full post
Review: Crispin, ClaphamReview: Cinnamon Bazaar, Covent GardenReview: Drunken Lobster, VentnorReview: Long Chim, SohoReview: The Greene Oak, Windsor

Review: Fiume, Battersea

Categories:

London, Restaurant Reviews

12 November 2021

Aubergine n radishes

Aubergine n radishes

The river front at Battersea Power Station is a very nice place to be now – as you’d hope, given the number of multi-million pound apartments surrounding you on all sides. It has an array of places to eat and we’ve been recommended No 29 and Wright Bros to try, but on this occasion we went with Italian; Fiume.

Burrata with tomatoes and a pile of watercress was okay, but looked as though as much care had gone into it as I put into a rushed lunch before a meeting at work. Maureen’s pile of aubergine with radishes and hazelnuts was better.

Cod

Cod

My baked cod was rather over-roasted, so there wasn’t too much left to love about the sturdy piece of white fish in tomato and olive sauce. Maureen did rather better with a cacio e pepe loaded up with generously grated black truffle. This was a well-made pasta, good silky consistency to the sauce and very nice use of truffle. Good good.

Tiramisu for dessert came in an individual metal bowl, had a nice punch of marsala in the sponge but was heavy on the cocoa powder topping. It all ftuck to thu rooth ov my mouf! Maureen’s pannacotta was a wobbly well-set pudding surrounded by gooey morello cherries. It was fine.

Overall Fiume just doesn’t feel like a place where a lot of love goes into the food, and in a few dishes it really shows. Especially galling at £40 for three courses before drinks (to be fair, you’re somewhat paying for the location). I’ll be trying all the other places at Battersea Power Station before I come back to this one.

Cacio e pepe e TRUFFLE

Cacio e pepe e TRUFFLE

Tags: , ,

Leave comment

Review: Kolamba, Soho

Categories:

London, Restaurant Reviews

12 November 2021

Mackerel croquettes

Mackerel croquettes

Typical. You wait ages for great Sri Lankan food, and then two come along at once.

Kolamba is on Kingly Street. That weird back alley behind Regent Street that really should just be full of the wheelie bins and detritus of all the big flagship stores whose staff exits emerge onto it, but instead is lined with some pretty decent places to eat. I’ve a sneaking suspicion Kolamba is the best of them.

You know the deal with Sri Lankan cuisine. BRIGHT flavours. SERIOUS spicing. BOLD colours. HARMONY of sweet/hot/sour/bitter. It’s basically the perfect casual dining cuisine for anyone who just loves their food to explode with flavour. Kolamba does Sri Lankan pretty much perfectly.

Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish

We snacked on fried up pieces of cuttlefish doused in a fiery hot butter and served with cool slices of bright green mild chilli. There was an amazing fermented chilli relish that might have gone with this, or with the little mackerel croquettes, I’m not sure.

Oh let me talk about the date and lime chutney! I mean, it’s totally unsophisticated. Mash up dates with limes and chilli. You can go and make some yourself. Doesn’t make it any less brilliant, with everything. I really liked their take on a seeni sambal as well. I’m used to a sticky-sweet onion flavour, but instead this was heavy on the fish paste and somehow came out with a funky blue-cheesey flavour that was very good with a mouthful of curry.

The goat curry was excellent, a very well built curry gravy and sturdy flavourful goat chunks. Jackfruit curry also good, maybe a tad less exciting. Pineapple and aubergine curry another explosion of flavour, maxed on the sweet but with enough hot-sour to balance. Good hoppers. Very good pulau rice.

We basically scoffed everything and went away happy, our mouths singing a spicy tune for hours after. Probably £30 each before drinks (but we guzzled a couple of good cocktails each, which pushed the bill up a notch). Excellent place to know about, for when you’re in Soho.

Curry feast

Curry feast

This post has no tag

Leave comment

Review: Cornerstone, Hackney

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Michelin, Restaurant Reviews

28 July 2021

Oysters

Oysters

I’ve been wanting to get to Cornerstone for a while, but it’s in Hackney. And I’m south of the river. Pretty much always have been. For those who don’t know, there really do seem to be two worlds in London and you either belong to one or t’other. I can tell you all about Clapham, Richmond, Balham, Wimbledon, Brixton, Battersea and Bermondsey. But I’d struggle to stick a pin in Highbury, Finchley, Hackney or Walthamstow on a map. So it felt very daring to jump on an Overground train and go for an Adventure In The North.

Glad I did, though. Cornerstone is as wonderful as everyone says. We were absolutely treated to a feast of British seafood over 8 courses for the princely sum of £60.

Bream tartare

Bream tartare

Can I tell you about the pickled oyster with a dressing of horseradish and dill? The texture was perfect and the flavours completely knock-out. But then I could say the same of the sea bream tartare with a gooey egg yolk perched on top, dressed in soy with nutty notes of sesame.

Things became more beautiful with the cured gurnard in ajo blanco (beautifully chilled garlicky almond soup, apparently this year’s must-have dish). This plate was every bit as satisfying to eat as it was jewel-like to behold. Gurnard is already a favourite fish of mine, but the delicate cure here amplified the strong flavour of the fish to a new level. Besotted, I drifted on to a wickedly good crumpet covered in a brown crab salad dressed with a throwback marie rose sauce. Crumpet and marie rose sauce are a great combination that I intend to explore at home!

Hake Kiev

Hake Kiev

The main course just had us grinning ear-to-ear. A beautifully crisp, brown kiev cracked at the pressure of a fork to reveal cloudy white hake and then unleash a gooey puddle of curried brown shrimp butter. Ha! Be envious! This was even better than it sounds!

There was a nice Lancashire savoury course and a simple choux bun dessert to finish us off. We enjoyed their wines by the glass, an interesting selection and decent value. Cornerstone is an absolute belter of a restaurant, and anyone who makes the pilgrimage to Hackney will not be disappointed.

Gurnard in ajo blanco

Gurnard in ajo blanco

This post has no tag

Leave comment

Review: Mana, Manchester

Categories:

Fine dining, Michelin, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

28 July 2021

Mana

Mana

My favourite thing at Mana. They made a fudge by reducing down 120 litres of cucumber juice to a mere dollop. It no longer tasted of cucumber exactly, but still had a green note along with a deep sticky-sweet flavour a bit seaweedy. This blob made a superb relish for some insanely well cured sea trout that had managed to become both soft and meaty at the same time. The light fermented rice sauce balanced this out very neatly.

That’s a good summary of the cooking at Mana: powerful flavours, splendid ingredients, great balance. Nervous eaters need not apply! So let’s recall some other highlights of the meal…

The money shot?!

The money shot?!

Lots of stand-out canapes but I really loved the crispy potato cones stuffed with a yeasty mousse and dusted with seaweed powder. It really was umami5000 and I could have eaten a dozen! Crispy carrot skin loaded with tartare of ex-dairy cow, smoked eel and a bit of coal oil was just filthy good.

At the other end of the meal, rose ice cream was like a summer garden with bees droning quietly around the heady scent of big blousy rose blossoms. Fermented honey added something more punky to the amazing bouquet. I also very much loved the slim tube of caramelised apple with woodruff that rounded out the affair.

Rose and honey

Rose and honey

In the middle were a whole fantasia of courses, strong on the seafood. Unpreserved caviar was a special treat atop the most chilled savoury milk curds and citric sorrel, real magic. Equally magical was the single perfect mussel, cleverly filleted and filled with a garlicky mince of its meat and served in hot butter. Oh, oh, and the small but sweet scallops served raw with a savoury fudge and a broth of bright Thai flavours. Oh, and the nice piece of sirloin accompanied by celtuce. Celtuce. Expect it to be in Waitrose in a couple of years, as it’s a deeply delicious veg stalk when sliced and char-grilled like this.

The dining room at Mana is very chic, with a big open kitchen for you to watch the team at work. The chefs present most of the dishes themselves. Great wine list. It’s very easy to be charmed here, and it’s very easy to be deeply impressed by the food. Obviously at £155 each it’s the higher end of tasting menus, but this is a meal I’ll remember for a long time. I recommend you go.

Tiny potato cones!

Tiny potato cones!

This post has no tag

Leave comment

Review: District, Manchester

Categories:

Fine dining, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

25 July 2021

District

District

It’s all about the vibe at District, a modern Thai tasting menu place in Manchester. Seriously. If you’re not into the vibe, you’ll hate it no matter what the food. And if you’re into the vibe, you’ll love it and maybe overlook the odd missed beat in the cooking.

The vibe is cyberpunky. You’ve got the clash of clean monochrome surfaces with industrial brickwork. The eye-catching logo printed irridescently on the black menu. Neon tubes and a silent cyber cityscape projection on the wall. And a pounding soundtrack of synth/rock/pop with an Asian slant.

Sea bass

Sea bass

I loved it. Even if some of the cocktails we tried were better in the naming than the tasting. Dream Gun didn’t have much bang. Though I’ll admit that Robot Blood was eye-catching and had a massive zing of uplifting lemongrass.

Some of the dishes were superb; the raw sea bass with blobs of vivid thai basil aioli in a slick broth of bright salty/sour/hot Thai flavours made for a great start. The little taco and tostada pair on the next plate were both good, the tartare beef with spicy “nam tok” (mint/lime?) on a black tostada the better. Later on, a splendid cube of chicken with crispy skin sat in a puddle of insanely coconuty but also cleanly spicy green curry, with char-grilled pieces of shimeji and baby corn that took the whole dish up a notch.

Chicken

Chicken

There were a couple of dishes that were still fascinating but could have been better. The pork coppa was nicely charred but had too much connective tissue to be lovely eating, and its sticky tamarind glaze clashed with the complex flavours of the sweet/sour/hot som tam salad served with it. This swapped out green papaya for kohlrabi, an intelligent change I’ve tried myself, and played around with a slippery tomato broth and sweetened little tomatoes. Interesting, but had lost a bit of zing. The local hogget belly was a really intensely flavoured piece of meat. Like sticking your nose into a sheep’s woolly flank and breathing deeply. Kinda magical, actually, but totally overwhelming any of the Thai flavours that tried to meld with it.

Pudding (“It was only a dream”) was a lovely mango cheesecake with puffed rice, and a nice ending. Overall I love what they’re aiming for at District, and I hope they never tone it down. At £40 each for the small tasting menu it’s really splendid value; the dishes that weren’t quite there are to my mind just some rough edges to sand off of a really top experience.

District

District

This post has no tag

Leave comment